“OK,” he said. “But in exchange I need you to do something for me.”
“Like what?”
“I need you to look at ancient history on your computer again.”
“I already have plenty to do today.”
“It only takes a minute. You have a really good system there.”
“Are you flattering me?”
“Did you design the system?”
“No.”
“Then no, I’m not. All I’m saying is it won’t take much time. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked. I know you’re extremely busy.”
“Now you’re respecting me to death. What would I be looking for?”
“Check the files after that thing with my father, seventy-five years ago. The next twenty-four months, until September 1945.”
“What happened then?”
“He joined the Marines.”
“What would I be looking for?”
“Something unsolved.”
“When do you need it by?”
“I’ll call you back as soon as I can. I want to hear about Carrington.”
* * *
—
They passed the wandering turn that led away through the orchards to Ryantown. They stayed on the back road, heading north. Reacher watched the phone. The bars went out, one by one. For a moment the screen said it was searching, and then it gave up and said no service. Up ahead were miles of fields, and then more woods, far in the distance. A left to right wall. Burke drove on toward it. He said he thought the motel entrance was about five miles in. On the left side. He remembered the signs. There was one each way. They said Motel, in plastic letters painted gold. They were mounted on gnarled old posts.
Five minutes later they drove into the trees. The air felt cooler. Sunlight sparkled through the leaves. Reacher checked the speedometer. They were doing forty. About five miles would take about seven or eight minutes. He counted time in his head. The trees grew thicker. Like a tunnel. No more sunbeams. The light turned green and soft.
Burke took his foot off the gas at seven minutes exactly in Reacher’s head. Burke said he was pretty sure the turn was coming up. Ahead on the left. Pretty soon. He remembered. But they saw no signs. No plastic letters, no gold paint. Just a pair of twisted old posts, leaning over a little, and the mouth of a track. Left and right of it on the main drag were unbroken walls of trees, both up ahead and far behind.
“I’m pretty sure this was it,” Burke said.
Reacher hitched up and pulled his map from his pocket. The one he had bought at the old edge-of-town gas station. He unfolded it and found the back road. He checked the scale and moved his finger. He showed Burke. He said, “This is the only turn for miles around.”
Burke said, “Maybe someone stole their signs.”
“Or they went out of business.”
“I doubt it. They were very committed. They had a business plan. I heard something about them, as a matter of fact. From the county office. They were extremely ambitious. But they got off to a bad start, as it turned out. They got in a fight about a permit.”
“Who did?”
“The people developing the property. They said any motel keeper depends on opening on time at the start of the season. They said the county was unreasonably slow with the permit. The county said the developer had started work without permission. They got in a fight.”
“When was this?”
“About a year and a half ago. Which is why they were upset about their timetable. They wanted to open the following spring. Which is also why they can’t be out of business yet. Their plan showed a two-year reserve.”
A patrol car responded to the county offices because a customer was causing a disturbance. He claimed a building permit was slow coming through. He claimed he was renovating a motel somewhere out of town.
He gave his name as Mark Reacher.
Reacher said, “I really need to go take a look at this place.”
Burke turned in, over broken blacktop that was missing altogether in whole table-sized patches. The light was greener still. Branches dipped in close, from both sides, some of them limp and broken, still fresh, as if a large vehicle had brushed by not long ago.
They found the large vehicle thirty yards later. It was stopped up ahead, tight against the trees on both sides, blocking the track completely.
It was a tow truck. Huge. Red paint, gold stripes.
“We just saw this thing,” Reacher said. “And I also saw it yesterday.”
A yard behind its giant rear tires was a wire, laid side to side across the road. It was fat and rubbery.